Nam
- Tour Of Duty is just like one of those
cowboy and Indian movies, with most of the characters playing the part
of cowboys. It was probably the most unrealistic movie that I am reviewing.
It follows a platoon of men, recruited from the "Combat initiation
course" by Sergeant Anderson, who is in his third tour of Vietnam,
so as you can probably tell he was a bit of a war horse. He is joined
by the platoon's new commander, LT. Goldman, who is straight out of
Officer Candidate School and on a bit of a power trip.

This platoon is sent on a mission to destroy NVA assets
in a hidden base, and they have to fight the enemy through and through
to get this mission completed.

The Platoon Commander was a very power hungry person,
who demands respect without earning it. This wasn't too uncommon in
Vietnam, these platoon commanders would not listen to advice given by
more experienced Platoon Sergeants and they would get themselves in
to trouble.

One of the very farfetched scenes of the movie is when
one of the privates has his "Protein food" taken away from
him by a pig, he chases the pig around, tackling it while all the other
men are standing around laughing at him. In real life, there is no time
for child's play like that, there is too much at stake to let your guard
down in war, and this platoon quickly learns that.

The platoon get ambushed in the village, and subsequently
one of their members gets captured after going off alone. He gets taken
down into the tunnels and quickly befriends a NVA doctor, who covers
for him and saves him from interrogation. I seriously think that this
story was made up purely for entertainment, and I don' think the producers
cared about accuracy, because nothing like that ever happens. Just like
the rescue mission to get him out of the tunnels, both Goldman and Anderson
go down into the tunnels, a two man rescue squad with the intention
of shooting their way to the prisoner.

Another really farfetched part of this movie is when
a NVA tunnel specialist is called in and when called a dwarf by one
of the Privates, knocks him to the ground and pulls a gun on him. That
just never happened, an American pulling a gun on another American for
something so trivial, that just didn't happen in the real war.

Probably the most accurate and realistic part of this
movie is the jungle fighting and ambushes, these were a regular occurrence
and this movie seems to have portrayed them. I did not like the bits
where a man would go off on his own to do personal recon, especially
without letting the LT know or anything, things like that rarely happened,
because out in the jungle we were a team and therefore needed to behave
like one.

I think that this movie was made purely for the entertainment
of the viewers, and it seems no attempt was made to actually make it
seem realistic, because sometimes I wondered whether it was a comedy
or not. I would see it more as an action movie than an accurate depiction
of a war movie. To be truthful I didn't like this movie alot, it insults
your intelligence a fair bit, but for anyone who just wants a good storyline
and a bit of action I can recommend this movie.